"WHAT rhymes with 'matrimony'?" inquired the widow, taking her pencil out of her mouth and looking up thoughtfully through the fringes of her pompadour.
"Money," responded the bachelor promptly, as he flung himself down on the grass beside her and proceeded to study her profile through the shadows of the maple leaves.
The widow tilted her chin scornfully.
"I suppose they do sound alike," she condescended, "but I am making a poem; and there is no poetical harmony in the combination."
"There is no harmony at all without it," remarked the bachelor shortly. "But how on earth can you make a poem out of matrimony?"
"Some people do," replied the widow loftily.
"On paper!" sneered the bachelor. "On paper they make poems of death and babies and railroad accidents and health foods. But in real life matrimony isn't a poem; it's more like a declaration of war, or an itemized expense account, or a census report, or a cold business proposition."
The widow bit the end of her pencil and laid aside her paper. If the bachelor could have caught a glimpse of her eyes beneath the lowered lashes he might not have gone on; but he was studying the sky through the maple leaves.
"It's a beautiful business proposition," he added. "A magnificent money making scheme, a——"
The bachelor's eyes had dropped to the widow's and he stopped short.